Question 1

CO

VE

R

Cover ConventionsI structured my cover around the conventions of a Kerrang! magazine cover. This focused on the general music magazine conventions such as a masthead, cover lines, a main image, advertisements, a selling line, headline, price and barcode. As my magazine is a rock one, it seemed appropriate to follow the structure of Kerrang! to keep in with the conventions of a rock magazine I took a range of images and chose from the most aggressive. I also added in some inappropriate language to engage the particular audience and link to the title ‘UNETHICAL’.

Inappropriate language to follow rock magazine conventions.

Artist eye contact is conventional of music magazines to make the magazine feel more personal to the audience.

I decided to follow conventions, rather than break them, because it is what an audience is used to. They are familiar with the structure and like it. They know their way around it and feel comfortable. It is popular. However, if I had broken conventions people may not understand and like to stick with what they already know.

Cover FormsMy cover’s forms follow a house style throughout each of the pages in order to show a connection and to make the audience feel comfortable. These forms include:• ColoursThe colours used in my cover are featured throughout the rest of my magazine. The colours are black and white, as they re contrasting and have a conventional rock association. And also a light blue, which is the same colour on the artist’s clothes.• ImagesI took my own images in a photo-shoot and manipulated them in Photoshop to add into the cover. It is then conventionally positioned central in the page.• TextI used a range of sizes for the text as the larger and bolder text is the most interesting and engaging to capture the audience’s attention. The smaller text is slightly more detail of the main titles and Headings. • FontsI used a house font throughout each of the pages for the smaller text and a bold, unique and edgy font for the Masthead, which is conventionally positioned at the top of my magazine.

HEADLINE FONT INITIAL IDEAS

Black, white and blue text, linking with house style colour scheme.

CO

NTEN

TS

Contents ConventionsThe layout of my Contents page has followed a similar structure to one of Kerrang!’s contents pages. I did this because Kerrang! are the most popular rock magazine and know how to appropriately appeal to the particular audience. It is conventional of a contents page to feature the name of the magazine, the date and issue number, a variety of images and follow a house style and colour scheme. As the contents is a navigation page it tends to feature page numbers, references and small snapshots of particular articles. Each article or feature tends to come under a particular category which is clearly stated.

TITLE OF PAGE AND MAGAZINE NAME

ISSUE NUMBERAND DATE

PAGE NUMBERS AND CATEGORIES

An editor’s letter is conventional of a contents page. They are not always featured every issue but certainly on the first issue and perhaps special editions.

THE KERRANG!

ISSUE I BASED MY

STRUCTURE ON.

Contents FormsMy content’s forms allow it to stand out to my audience and fit the conventions that they are used to in rock magazines.• COLOURS I used the same colours as in my cover to keep in with the house style. This then gives more of a comfortable feel to the magazine.

• IMAGES I used a large range of images in my contents to make it look as visual and busy as possible. I used large and small images that related to the information in the contents page. This meant that the audience can infer what each article/section is about and makes it look more wild and jagged.

• TEXTThe text I used related most to the information within the magazine in context but visually linked to the font used in my cover. It is bold and simple so it is easy and clear to read. I focussed more on what it looked like rather than the context because the audience who like this style of music tend to prefer images rather than text.

AR

TIC

LE

Article ConventionsI wanted my article layout to represent more than the genre of rock but also have a serious and quite dark twist to it. An article page I found was about a band break up, was simple but represented sadness so I decided to follow its structure. My magazine article follows the conventions of a title, a main image, quotations, an article, a sub heading (possibly more of a revelation into the article).

HEADLINE

SUB-HEADDING, LOCATED JUST BELOW THE HEADLINE

QUOTATIONS LOCATED

THROUGH ARTICLE

PAGES

MAIN IMAGE FOR A SERIOUS EFFECT

Article FormsThe forms in my article page are similar to those in both my cover and contents pages. They allow the page to meet the needs of the target audience and appeal to them. • COLOURS I used the same colours as in my cover and contents to keep in with the house style. This then gives more of a comfortable feel to the magazine and allows the pages to all be connected.

• IMAGES I used one main image as it is conventional of music magazine articles to have one main image. It is positioned to the right hand side and the text is positioned to the left.

• TEXTThe text is the main focus of this page so I used a clear and readable font in a colour that allowed it to be easily read against the background. I changed the colour of the quotes to the blue colour featured throughout the magazine. This was so that they would be separated and different to the rest of the text. The main article is smaller in size than the heading so that the title stands out clearly and is the first thing noticed on the page. It is also conventionally positioned to the top-left hand of the page.

WHITE TEXT WITH BLUE QUOTES

ONE MAIN IMAGE

Challenging ConventionsThe aspects that make up my magazine cover, contents and article pages tend to follow the conventions of a Rock magazine. It follows the dark, aggressive and wild nature of the genre. However, it does challenge the conventions of music magazines in general.

For example the inappropriate language used on the cover is not subtle and is quite bold and obvious. This breaks the conventions of music magazines as they tend to ‘play it safe’ and don’t take risks such as this, but rock is not afraid to as it is expected from the readers… It’s what they like. The audience like the rebellious features and it’s what they specifically look for in a rock magazine because they don’t get it anywhere else.

Furthermore, some of the images of weird characters are unexpected in normal music magazines. The idea of a clown or zombie may put people off, however in rock magazines the strange nature draws them towards it.

Existing Magazine ConventionsI based my work around many different aspects of existing rock magazines. The main one I used was Kerrang! I did this because Kerrang! uses conventions that the audience I was aiming at like. Its what they are used to and expect.

Kerrang! feature a range of bands and artists throughout all following a particular style. They make the cover look busy and jam packed with cover lines, and freebies etc. I wanted to make my magazine busy and wild like Kerrang! in order to meet the needs of my target audience.

These three images are the ones I based my pages from. There are some similarities in structure and style but other aspects I wanted to change in order to make a more personal stamp on it.